Cisco academy to train 1mn Indian students by 2025

US-based networking major Cisco Systems is planning to train one million Indin students in key digital skills by 2025. 

The company announced the expansion of its networking academy programme during the sixth edition of Cisco India Summit (CIS) 2019.

Cisco had committed, in 2016, to train 250,000 students by 2020, which the company achieved a year ahead of schedule. 

Cisco’s networking academy programme is an information technology (IT) skills and career-building programme for individuals worldwide. 

The company aims to create a pool of highly-skilled technology professionals who will accelerate India’s digital transformation, an official statement said. The commitment is aligned with Cisco’s goal of positively impacting 50 million people in India by 2025, the statement added.

Under the networking academy programme, schools, colleges, universities, vocational institutions, government and non-profit organisations are provided with a Cisco-developed curriculum on the Internet of things (IoT). The curriculum can be integrated with the institution’s educational programmes. It also offers support to government education institutes in providing training on networking and cybersecurity skills.

Cisco said that the academy programme in India is one of the company’s largest such initiatives worldwide. The programme has trained more than 350,000 Indian students across 583 academies nationwide.

Cisco, Accenture and Quest Alliance signed a memorandum of understanding with the Directorate General of Training and the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship to support digital skill development and collaboration for India's growing digital economy. The initiative targets up to 1.5 million students in Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) across the country via the Bharat Skills portal. 

At the beginning of the month, the company entered into a partnership with the Kerala government to bring in the benefits of data science to the farming communities in the state.

In May, the company had signed a memorandum of understanding with Indian School of Business-Hyderabad to build a digitally intuitive campus.